VR firmly on Facebook roadmap

Facebook CTO Mike Schroepfer has described virtual reality (VR) as one of three core components to Facebook’s 10-year roadmap – alongside artificial intelligence and connecting even more people to the web.

“It took 10 years for smartphones to get to a billion people. There’s no reason this can’t get there, but it will take time – people have to have patience,” said Schroepfer on the adoption of VR… Headsets will get easier to put on, they’ll get smaller and lighter, the resolution will get better, the content will get better.”

He said facebook was committed to VR technology and will continue to build in this area – even if others decide VR is a passing fashion. “We do think it is a transformational technology. It’s like the ultimate empathy device….If you want to really know what it’s like to be inside someone else’s shoes, I don’t know of another technology in the time where I’m going to be alive that is like this.”
“This is a technology that I think is going to erase geographic boundaries for people,” he said at the Code Conference in California, adding that the team that is working on VR experiences inside Facebook already conducts its Friday afternoon meetings in VR.